Call of Duty: Black Ops III - Enough is Enough

With the release of yet another installment of the Call of Duty series on the near (November 26, 2015) horizon, one can’t help but wonder, when will it be over? Will they just keep releasing these things until the end of days? Will people finally just stop buying them, forcing the franchise into the history books? Maybe the infrastructure will fall and no one will be playing video games anyway because, well, no electricity, and so it won’t really matter anymore.

Well, all those possible scenarios aside, let’s get down to the facts. The game is in beta now, and the story takes place 35 years after the end of Black Ops 2. In the year 2060 the world’s nations have figured out that they need pretty solid anti-drone defenses, and so ground warfare is back on the table, and that means you are going to get in there and take out those targets. It won’t be entirely low-tech though. Thanks to Cyber Cores and Cyber Rigs you can now join the Black Ops battle as a cyborg and go to that place that all FPS games eventually must go, the not so distant future of cyborg super-humans with robot arms carrying weapons once meant for being attached to tanks or aircrafts, augmented eyes letting them look through walls and see heat, and super computers linked to their brains bringing them battlefield updates in the form of a mini-map in the upper left hand corner of the scr…oh wait, that’s always been a part of the game you say? Well at least we’ll have robot legs…

With power slides, wall runs, and tricky mantles mobility around the battlefield is definitely something that has changed in the new installment of the series. Players can now run along select walls, use speed boosting thrust jumps, and generally zoom around the battlefield in a high powered combat suit. A little too Titanfall for this writer, but there is one thing that really saves the game in my opinion, and that is…

Co-Op! Finally, it’s about time that I be able to get some friends together and take on the Black Ops campaign. The campaign mode stories are always the best part in my opinion, and being able to bring three friends along in more than just Zombies mode is definitely something to look forward to. The levels are also more open, allowing for players to formulate their own strategies and use the particular skills of the group. This, in of itself, might make the game worth playing, but maybe not until after the first price drop.

Now back to another gripe, more zombies? I mean, yes, it was fun, but there are only so many zombies that we can kill. I know, it’s a bit of a hype word, but honestly there is only so much you can change about fending off hordes of zombies. Sure, new levels and weapons are nice, and occasional new characters can add a little freshness, but it really is just the same old thing. At this point they should just do the fans a solid and switch over to releasing new DLC for Zombies, and stop using it as a selling point for the new game. I for one would much more readily buy a content pack with a couple of maps, a few new guns, and maybe a new character to play, than buying another whole CoD game.

For now it looks like the series isn’t going anywhere, despite the gripes of one gamer, it’s obvious they are still selling games, and when my roommate inevitably buys this one, as he does with all the CoD games, I might be caught playing a game of Zombies with him from time to time, so there’s no denying that they must be doing something right.

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Alex De-Gruchy is a writer and editor of fiction and non-fiction whose work covers videogames, comic books and prose. His upcoming projects include two graphic novels from Markosia Enterprises, and several videogames including a shoot-‘em-up, an action-RPG, a visual novel, and a narrative-driven puzzle game. Marvel at more wordy outpourings from his brain-meats on Twitter: @AlexDeGruchy.